Our President Obama needs to be very cautious here. On one hand, the people who elected him are frustrated at his "bipartisanship". On the other hand, the people on the right, specially the MSM, are already giving the spoils of the "stimulus" to the Republicans. His nomination of Judd Gregg for Commerce, in tandem with the assurance that a Republican will be nominated to that vacated Senate seat, looks like gratutious bipartisanship. And that is shaping up to be the political killing fields for our President,even before a single policy issue has come to the forefront of the national debate.
George Bush and his cohorts left the country in tatters:
A criminal enterprise at the White House that lied, cheated and murdered openly under claims of national security and executive privelege
A broken Department of Justice that is unable to uphold the law, even in the case of the Governor of a major state of the Union
A crippled military dragged into an unnecessary war with loss of life and injuries in the millions
And now we face an economic collapse that may be greater than the Great Depression. The Republicans have taken to the airwaves in full swing. The response from Democratic leaders has not been encouraging. Even on Rachel Maddow, not a single leader showed up today to hit back at the Republicans. Clair McCaskill, who showed up for a different topic (Wall Street pay) signed off saying we should all give Obama a chance, as long as he kept to his principles.
Sure, but where is the Democratic pushback? Where are the Cabinet members on TV? Who is driving the agenda? The base has been put off by this bipartisanship thrust. And we don't see any of his Republican cabinet members defending Obama's plans either.
Fine, it has been only a couple of weeks since the inauguration. But my sense is that Obama is losing traction fast. By not recognizing reality:
- Not recognizing that the Bushies have broken significant laws (torture, war, DOJ) and moving to prosecute those quickly
- Not addressing key campaign issues like universal healthcare to keep the base energized and moving
- Not recognizing that the banks are bankrupt and continuing to reward Wall Street for its failures through bad bank proposals while ordinary citizens are losing jobs amid mounting debt at higher and higher rates.
I am afraid the window of opportunity has started to slip away for our President. After eight years of Bush, this thought is extremely depressing. I hope with all my will that it is not true, but it must be said before it is too late to fix.